1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method for manufacturing cigarette rolling papers and, more particularly, to a packaged cigarette rolling paper which has a curved edge which serves to facilitate rolling a cigarette with the paper, as it eliminates the corners of the traditional rectangular rolling paper, which become an obstacle if the top and bottom edges of the paper are not kept parallel to each other as the cigarette is rolled, a common problem.
2. The Prior Art
Conventionally cigarette rolling papers are rectangular thin tissue-like paper. The standard diameter of a cigarette is generally around 8 mm and the length also varies, but is on the order of 65 mm. Hand-rolling cigarettes is an ancient art, hundreds of years old, and requires some skill. There have been gadgets developed to make it easier. In both the cases of hand-rolling without any equipment, and with the common hand-rolling machines, which are built to feed common rectangular papers, there is a problem that the top and bottom edges of the paper have to be kept parallel, or the leading corner will bind up as you start to roll. Rectangular papers are easily created from a web by slitting to the appropriate width and then straight cutting the slit web to the appropriate length. The rectangular papers can then be stacked in standard rectangular packaging.
While certain non-rectangular rolling papers in individual form have been proposed, there has not been a disclosure of industrial scale methods to manufacture them. In addition, there is no teaching of customized non-rectangular packaging. Individual non-rectangular rolling papers are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,363,989 and GB 18,827 and FR 620,791 and DE 819,219 and FR 1,109,547. The references do not address how such papers may be produced on a commercial scale.
Another rolling paper design is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,289,975 entitled Cigarette Wrapper. The main rectangular rolling paper has a closure tongue 12 and a holding strip 14 extending off a lower corner thereof. The holding strip helps keep the tobacco in place while the paper is rolled. The closure tongue then prevents tobacco from coming out into the mouth of the user. A further rolling paper design is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,629 entitled Cigarette Rolling Paper with Integral Pouch. A pouch is formed at the lower edge of the rolling paper to hold the tobacco during rolling. Tear strips at either end allow the edges of the pouch to be removed after rolling to expose the tobacco. Both of these patents utilize extra material which can increase costs and detract from the cigarette enjoyment.
When rolling a cigarette, the user takes the flat paper and folds it to form a pouch in a u- or v-shape to hold the smoking material. The near and far edges are referred to hear as the bottom and top edges, respectively. The near edge is kept short, and has the edge that is tucked in to start the roll. The far edge, top, has the edge which seals the cigarette at the end when it is rolled up. The user rolls the near edge up into the far edge to form the final cylindrical cigarette shape. The top edge is often treated with glue to seal the cylinder, but that is sometimes omitted, on glueless papers, which self-seal when activated by moistening, typically with saliva.
Years ago, Zig-Zag, one of the venerable established cigarette rolling paper companies, came out with an innovation to address this problem, they produced papers with the corners cut off. People had done that for years, and it helped with this problem. It works well. The Zig-Zag KutKorners papers are still available. There have been no other successful designs to address this problem, nor many other innovations at all in this stable mature market since the Zig-Zag KutKorner papers came out.
There are EZ-wider papers, which are just larger and heavier rectangular papers, which allow you to get out of parallel and catch a corner and still just keep rolling up because there is so much paper. But smoking more paper is not desirable.
The Zig-Zag KutKorners are good, but the total elimination of the problem catching the corner of the rolling paper is desirable, and dramatically extends the primitive advantage of the Zig-Zag KutKorners, and individual discoverers of coin coupe as a folkway, cut corners, as regards rolling papers.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an economical method for manufacturing large quantities of curved edge rolling papers.
In addition, it would be desirable to provide a custom sized package to allow consumers to readily identify the enclosed product.
Furthermore, it would be desirable to provide a manufacturing process to produce commercial quantities of pre-packaged curved edge rolling papers that facilitates the rolling of cigarettes.